Please join us for morning clean-ups in and around the bayou! Meet us on the Orleans Avenue Bridge (Carrollton side) at 10AM Sunday, May 19th and/or Monday, May 20th. We will be picking up left over litter from the areas outside the festival grounds and in the bayou. We will have garbage bags and some grabbers. You should bring gloves and any helpful equipment. We will have a handful of kayaks for the bayou portion of the clean-up. For your amazing volunteer efforts, you’ll receive schwag that morning and will automatically be entered into the “Cash for Trash” raffle.

Cash For Trash Raffle

If you’re environmentally-minded AND you like to win stuff….we have the thing for you! Stop by the Canopy Club entrance next to the Friends of Bayou St. John Orleans Stage OR the Volunteer Check-in at Orleans and Jeff Davis during the festival to get a recyclable bag, fill it up at the fest with any recyclables you see about, and return the bag to the same place to fill out a raffle ticket for the change to win cool prizes like gift certificates to neighborhood restaurants and $100 cash! Big thanks to our partners and the Bayou Boogaloo Green Team leaders Kayak-It-Yat for coordinating this program with us. Must return bag by 6pm to be entered. Drawings every day of the festival on the Orleans stage between the last two acts!

Arts & Crafts Tent

Located next to The Ruby Slipper Cafe Kids Stage, the interactive Arts & Crafts tent is fun for kids of all ages.

You are responsible for providing your own bicycle and helmet. For out-of-town riders, New Orleans now has a bicycle share program called Blue Bikes. There is a Blue Bike station right in front of our first stop and very close to our last stop, so it should be convenient to rent a bicycle if need be. The route is short and the pace is slow: the goal is to have a good time as we appreciate our city on the way to the Bayou Boogaloo. It is a fundraiser for both the Friends of Bayou St John (formerly MotherShip Foundation), which puts on the Bayou Boogaloo, and The Mid-City Volleyball Group, which provides outdoor volleyball opportunities for players of all skill level. We ask for a $20.00 donation for the ride, and along the way you will be treated to some free food, music and local history. Both alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks are available at each stop for purchase.

Gathering Point: 8:30am–9:30am at Wrong Iron, 500 N. Genois St. We will gather and have our first drink at Wrong Iron, a recently opened beer garden along the Lafitte Greenway. The business gets its name from railroad slang for a train going the wrong way down the tracks. Since the Lafitte Greenway was once a shipping canal from the end of Bayou St John to the French Quarter and later co-existed with railroad tracks that extended far beyond the bayou, it makes sense that this establishment took a name that relates to its historical function as a transportation corridor. We’ll take care of all the paper work at this first stop as we sip our morning beverage of choice.

9:35a.m.–10:20a.m. at Clesi’s Restaurant & Catering, 4323 Bienville St. Though Clesi’s has been catering events for many years and building a strong following, the owner just recently purchased a lot in Mid-City out of which to operate a sit down restaurant. Clesi’s opened less than a year ago just two short blocks from the Lafitte Greenway trailhead in Mid-City, and you can see them cleaning and cooking the mudbugs as you walk into the restaurant. This place has a rustic feel with most of the seating being outdoors on a wooden deck or at wooden picnic tables. Yes, the atmosphere is casual and unpretentious, and the tree-lined street now has spacious bike lanes running in both directions.

10:25a.m.–11:10a.m. at MoPho, 514 City Park Ave. This Mid-City eatery is located across from Delgado Community College in a building that was formerly a bookstore. The business was started by two waiters and a chef that were craving Vietnamese food after consuming an excessive quantity of alcohol one night. Though the owners are Anglo, they make incredibly tasty spicy wings not to mention their signature noodle soup known in Vietnam as phở. There’s a full bar inside, too, as well as a cute little courtyard. Can anyone name a Vietnamese beer?

11:20a.m.–12:05p.m. at Swirl Wine Bar & Market, 3143 Ponce De Leon St. Though the store is small, it is packed with a variety of delicious wines from all over the world. If you’ve never been to this friendly shop in Faubourg St John, you’ve been missing out on a good time. Swirl Wine Bar regularly offers wine tastings, and like Clesi’s Restaurant the owner and employees of Swirl Wine Bar have developed a loyal following over the past decade or so. For today’s visit, Swirl Wines will be serving both beer and wine at an affordable price, and of course you’re welcome to buy a bottle of wine for later in the day (though you cannot bring outside drinks into the Bayou Boogaloo). If the weather is nice, the main service area will be in the back courtyard.

12:15p.m.–1:00p.m. at the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, 732 N. Broad St. “Oh na nay shake that thing / Tutti Ma is a big pretty thing.” Sound familiar? Do you want to feel the spirit of New Orleans as you shake your thing in one of New Orleans’ iconic clubs? The Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club will be the last drinking establishment we visit as we prepare ourselves for the festival just a few blocks away. This stop alone will probably make the ride worth your effort, but join us early in the day as we crescendo to the Zulu Club. The Zulu Club is always so good to us, and we are always so good to the Zulu Club. Help us keep the good vibes rolling as we enjoy the atmosphere of the legendary Zulu headquarters.
Our final stop is of course the Bayou Boogaloo itself. We’ll either ride straight up Orleans to the center of the festival, or will take the Lafitte Greenway back to the Blue Bike station and Lafitte stage.

To get an accurate head count for the bicycle ride, please register on-line at www.midcityvolleyball.org. You can also contact Peter Hickman, the organizer of the MCVG Bayou Boogaloo Bicycle Pub Crawl, directly at phickm@gmail.com or (504)427-1207.

Join the E-List

Enter your email address to be the first to have access to Boogaloo announcements, events, and special offers!